


River Flowing

by Dwimordene



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canon - Enhances original, Canon - Non-canonical to good purpose, Characters - Good use of minor character(s), Characters - Well-handled emotions, General, Plot - Can't stop reading, Subjects - Culture(s), War of the Ring, Writing - Engaging style, Writing - Evocative, Writing - Well-handled introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 08:36:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4215115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dwimordene/pseuds/Dwimordene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short, angsty "birthday card" as it were for Isabeau. At her request, a very minor character gets a moment in the sun: one fine day in Ithilien, while Sam and Frodo wait with Mablung and Damrod, a Haradrim troop comes marching, marching....</p>
            </blockquote>





	River Flowing

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the HASA Transition Team: This story was originally archived at [HASA](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Henneth_Ann%C3%BBn_Story_Archive), which closed in February 2015. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2015. We posted announcements about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact The HASA Transition Team using the e-mail address on the [HASA collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hasa/profile).

**Dedication** : For Isabeau. Um... happy birthday... you wanted a tragedy, right? You suggested we do those characters who get about six lines in the actual books. Well, here's one better for you: no lines at all. Let's see if I made him speak....

*******

I can hear it. I marvel that I can hear it, for the land is alive and has such voices that my ears ring with them. Were night to fall, I doubt I could sleep with such strangeness about me. And such fear. But that I have lived long with—or at least, all my life. For I have not yet lived long and it is ill for the young to speak from the heights of wisdom, they say—they, who are wise, and with eyes sand-scoured, as we say. And yet even eyes so old and wise have not seen, perhaps, what I see this day, and so perhaps I may be forgiven if I speak as one long in years. Even the captain is ill at ease here, suspicious of the profusion of trees (trees!), and we try not to smile at this, for it shall be a long march and hardship enough without his ire. But perhaps it might even be worth the lashing to laugh, for I have seen it. There are many who live out their lives in ignorance, dreaming of it, wondering at it, wishing for it. But I have seen it. 

Water. Not a shallow, muddy pool that rises to the surface and which must be strained and boiled before drinking, nor the sort that hides in deep-dug sandy wells, nor even the salt water of the coasts (which I have not seen), but water that flows, clear and bright and broad. Water that overwhelms the land and forces a passage through the earth, as once the waters did in my country. But they vanished long ago, and I have never seen those that remain. I am told they are a sight, and yet we hear of the waters of this place--how they run, how they gleam, growing wider as they tumble into the sea. So close to my land! And yet so very far, barred by sand and sword and shield and the dry bones of warriors long dead. Or not so long, perhaps—the bare-headed hawks make swift work of the untended fallen.

They say that this land is green, but I did not know green could be so many colors, nor that brown—a color so intimately known to us—could breathe life as it does here. We feel them hemming us in, closing round us, this forest and this land. Even the air is heavy, pressing down and my lungs ache already, though 'tis not long since last we paused to rest. Bhravi and I went a little ways away from the others, for we stopped facing west, and so with the river upon our right. The bank was not so steep there, and we scrambled down it. We are the only two from our town, Bhravi and I, and it is good to hear the sounds of home out of each other's mouths. For among our fellows, we speak seldom or only painfully, for the speech of the great cities is not our own. While the others rested together uneasily, we stood near the river and stared down at it, and after a moment, Bhravi pointed. " _Ghoti!_ " I looked and saw a flash of silver in the water--a long, smooth, tapered shape; legless, unless the flowing ribbons on either side were legs. It stayed a moment, still in the shallows, and then swift as a hawk, off it darted into the deeper waters. I shook my head, amazed.

"They say that men sometimes drown themselves," Bhravi said, staring out at the glittering surface. "Can you imagine?"

"Too cold," I replied, and we fell silent, having nothing more to say. When the captain ordered us to form ranks, we fell in without protest. But before I left that place, I stooped to touch the water, and I found it not so chill as I had been led to believe.

So perhaps it might not be so bad a way... certainly it would be novel. More novel than what faces us for as long as we journey under the open, sunlit sky. Gold on scarlet, our colors—glory to the One who rules us, glory to the ones who have fallen before us, glory to we who walk this path but who knows whether we shall come home? There are other paths, and why could we not take them, safe behind the mountains? But there is no honor in safety—so they tell us. The Great Eye wills it, and so we march, who would be faithful to our oaths. And if we live to tell of the river, then I shall be glad. And even if we do not, then I think I shall still be glad to have seen it. Do you hear, _tarakhe_? I have seen it. I have seen your river, your lands, breathed your air and trodden your earth. Can you say the same of the secret places of my home? Slay us all, we still have seen your river flowing. And one day, we shall come just as swift as the current; as the water overruns the land, so shall we come: over river and over wall, until we walk in your very streets. We are coming, Gondor, for the storm of Sauron is at our backs!

***

_  
_

Then suddenly straight over the rim of their sheltering bank, a man fell, crashing through the slender trees, nearly on top of them. He came to rest in the fern a few feet away, face downward, green arrow-feathers sticking from his neck below a golden collar....

It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace....

TTT, 340-341.


End file.
